Node.js 8 brings sanity to native module dependencies

Node.js, the popular server-side JavaScript platform, has been upgraded with improvements related to the runtime, buffer security, URL parsing, and preserving dependencies on native modules across major Node.js upgrades.

On the module dependencies front, Node.js 8.0.0, released today by the Node.js Foundation, introduces the Node.js API, or N-API, albeit still behind an experimental flag. The N-API is designed to eliminate the breakage of dependencies on native modules that happens between release lines.

Although native modules are a small portion of the modular ecosystem, 30 percent of all JavaScript modules rely indirectly on native modules, which are written in C or C++ and are bound to the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine. “Every time Node.js has a major release update, package maintainers have to update these dependencies,” the foundation said.

Node.js, the popular server-side JavaScript platform, has been upgraded with improvements related to the runtime, buffer security, URL parsing, and preserving dependencies on native modules across major Node.js upgrades.

On the module dependencies front, Node.js 8.0.0, released today by the Node.js Foundation, introduces the Node.js API, or N-API, albeit still behind an experimental flag. The N-API is designed to eliminate the breakage of dependencies on native modules that happens between release lines.

Although native modules are a small portion of the modular ecosystem, 30 percent of all JavaScript modules rely indirectly on native modules, which are written in C or C++ and are bound to the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine. “Every time Node.js has a major release update, package maintainers have to update these dependencies,” the foundation said.